Into the Black
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: Short story. Set S1/S3. What it is that makes a monster? The things that are different? Or the things that are the same? Dean and Sam meet two different kinds of monsters and don't recognise either until its too late. No slash, no spoilers.


**Into the Black**

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><p>"<em>There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds."<em>_  
><em>_~ Laurell K. Hamilton_

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><p><strong><em>2006. Hobson, New Mexico<em>**

The lights of the tiny town glittered at the end of the stretch of blacktop they were driving down. Dean rubbed his face tiredly. He needed to stop, eat, rest. He glanced over at the passenger side, seeing his brother leaning against the door, his eyes closed and a slight whistle sighing with each breath. Sam only caught short naps, before the nightmares kicked in again. As if aware of his brother's thoughts, he jerked to wakefulness, his eyes flying open, dragging in a deep breath.

"You okay, Sam?" Dean flicked a glance sideways and back to the road.

"Yeah." He straightened up, rolling the shoulder he'd been leaning against as he squinted at the road ahead. "How long have you been driving for?"

"Long enough."

"You want me to take over?" He twisted in the seat, looking at his brother's profile.

"No. We'll stop up ahead. Get some food, some shut-eye."

Sam nodded. They could spare the time.

Dean saw the sign for the small bar a few minutes later, screaming hot pink and yellow against the black desert night sky. He turned off, feeling the car bounce as they crossed from tar to gravel, and pulled into a space in front of the building. The parking lot was nearly empty, a dozen bikes leaning on their kickstands in front of it looking like the only customers. He looked down the line and got out of the car, hoping that the kitchen was still open. Or that it had a kitchen.

"Dean. Door's locked." Sam had stopped in front of the door, and was looking in the narrow window to one side of it. Dean frowned slightly, walking up beside him and looking around his shoulder.

The frown deepened instantly. He turned and went back to the car, opening the trunk and taking out his automatic, Sam's Taurus and a shotgun. He checked the magazines of both handguns, and locked the trunk again, tossing the shotgun to his brother, followed by the Taurus.

"Wait a minute, is this a good–?" He didn't get a chance to finish the question before Dean walked to the door and kicked, the outside edge of his foot slamming into the wood just above the lock and breaking it free completely.

Following him inside, he felt his stomach clench as his gaze swept the room.

There were maybe eight or nine men standing clustered around a table next to the pool table, another couple by the bar, and a woman on the other side by the jukebox, their expressions frozen as they took in the intruders.

Stretched over the table, a woman had been bound, her wrists and ankles tightly tied to the legs of the table. She was naked, her body red with blood from cuts and gashes, bruises already showing over her ribs and stomach and face, and around the deep bite marks that patterned her thighs and breasts. One eye was shut completely, the other was slightly open, both swollen. One of the men stood between her legs, looking over his shoulder at them.

Dean lifted the auto and started firing, his face utterly devoid of expression, the barrel swivelling smoothly from target to target, headshots until the men shook themselves free of shock and started to scatter, duck and dodge. Then he fired at whatever he could see of them. Beside him, Sam grimaced but took out the two at the bar, both of whom were reaching for their own weapons, and fired the shotgun at the woman who'd smashed her beer bottle against the wall and come running at him.

In ninety seconds, there was no more movement. Dean glanced at Sam.

"Get the blanket from the car." He tossed the keys to him. "Then get it started."

Sam caught the keys and turned for the door, the stench of blood filling his nostrils. He took a deep breath as he closed the door behind him, pushing back at the crowding memories of the past minute.

Walking across the room, Dean pulled his knife from the sheath on the back of his belt. He cut through the ties and worked the rope from the woman's limbs as gently as he could. A dark mark on her skin under the rope on her left wrist made him look more closely. It was a tattoo, the lines thick, but the pattern delicate. He frowned at it. The upward and outward curving lines joined together, like a knot, and he thought he'd seen something like this before. He felt Sam come up behind him and held out his hand without looking, taking the blanket and shaking it out, wrapping it around her, and putting his arms under her shoulders and knees.

"See if you can find her stuff." He turned around, shifting the position of his arms slightly to get a better grip. Sam looked the floor and picked up a piece of cloth, his mouth twisting as he realised that the top and skirt and underwear had been cut up … cut off, maybe. A brown leather purse sat on the pool table, and he looked through it, seeing a driver's licence and student card in the cheap wallet. Both photos and descriptions could have been a match for the woman … her face was swollen and bruised and bloody, bearing little resemblance to them, so it was hard to be sure. He picked up the purse and followed Dean out to the rumbling car.

Dean had slid into the back seat, still cradling the woman against him, keeping the blanket wrapped around her. He nodded as Sam dropped the purse onto the seat beside him, and went to the driver's door, getting in.

"Where's the nearest hospital?"

"Uh … Hobbs, north. A few miles."

"We'll go there. Take her to the ER."

Sam nodded and pulled around, heading onto the highway again. In the backseat, Dean looked down at her face, the tight, hard expression dissolving from his own as he let thought and feeling back in. Her breathing was shallow and fast, uneven and he thought that some of her ribs might be cracked or broken. He shifted his arm, so she lay flatter. Her lips were swollen, both split, and he wiped away the blood that trickled down her cheek. The movement, as small as it was, made her jerk against him, the almost-shut eye opening a little wider. In the darkness of the car he couldn't see the colour, but he saw the fear readily enough.

"It's okay." He kept his voice low, not wanting to have to hold her any harder if she started to struggle. "We're taking to you to a hospital. You're gonna be alright."

She stared at him for a long moment, and he felt the trembling start in her shoulders, travelling fast down her body until she was shaking against him. He tightened his grip slightly, mainly to keep her from aggravating her injuries, until the reaction had slowed and passed. He looked down, and saw her eye closing again, the muscles of her face relaxing.

Reaching for the purse beside him, he pulled out the wallet that Sam had left near the top. Adrianna Landry. Twenty years old. Address was in Dallas. The photo on the licence showed a pretty face, wide cheekbones, full mouth, beautiful eyes, framed by shoulder-length dark brown hair. He looked down at her again, unable to make out any of those features in the face below him. He put the wallet back, his jaw muscle bunching at the point.

He looked up and saw Sam's eyes in the rearview mirror, wide and worried.

"What?"

"Those were people we killed back there, Dean." Sam looked back at the road, biting at his lip. "Not monsters."

Dean looked at him. "Not all monsters have fangs and claws, Sammy. Some of them look just like us."

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><p>Sam pulled in front of the ambulance bay at the hospital, walking around the car to open the rear door. He picked up the purse and helped his brother out with the girl, then went to open the doors. Dean crossed the concrete pavement and walked through, ignoring the desk.<p>

"Get a doctor around here?" he called out, glancing down at her again. Under the very bright white lights of the corridor, she looked a hundred times worse. He looked up as a doctor came out of the office down the hall, walking up to them quickly.

"What happened?" He looked down at her face, his face sagging slightly in shock at the injuries he could see.

"Gang rape." Dean said shortly, and looked around for a place to put her. The doctor raised his head, looking into Dean's face.

"What?"

"Where can I put her?" Dean didn't want a discussion about it. The doctor nodded and pulled aside a curtain to one of the examination bays, stepping to one side as Dean walked to the bed and laid her on it. He felt fingers clutching at the sleeve of his jacket, and saw that she was awake again, looking at him through the half-closed eye.

"Don't leave me, please." Her fingers curled around the leather sleeve.

"I'm sorry. We have to." He leaned close to her, lowering his voice further. "They're all dead. You'll be safe now."

She stared up at him. "I'm afraid."

He nodded slowly, uncurling her fingers from his sleeve and squeezing her hand gently. "I know, but it's over now. Okay? You'll be safe here."

"Dean."

He turned to look at his brother, hovering in the doorway. Sam jerked his head toward the door.

The doctor pulled the blanket away, and was examining the woman, his face white under the slight tan. Dean took her purse from Sam and put it on the nightstand next to the bed, moving aside as a nurse came up behind him, her breath rushing out as she saw the extent of the injuries.

"Dean. C'mon."

"Wait, where was this?" The doctor looked around as Dean backed out of the bay, turning.

"Down the highway." He shook his head slightly, and followed Sam out of the building. Sam pulled away and Dean turned in the seat, chewing on the inside of his cheek as they left it behind. He didn't want to leave her, not there by herself, after what had happened to her.

Sam glanced at him, seeing the uncertainty on his face. "Dean, we just killed a dozen people. We have to get out of here."

"Yeah. I know." He turned slowly back to the front, staring at the highway in front of the car.

"She'll be okay now."

"Yeah."

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><p><strong><em>2008. Ashland, Virginia.<em>**

Dean finished his burger, looking exasperatedly at his brother. "We have looked everywhere, Sam. I'm just saying that I don't think we're going to find an answer."

Sam scowled. "We're running out of time, Dean. We should go back to Boston."

His brother shook his head. "Whatever it's gonna take, it's not going to be in Boston."

He leaned back slightly as the girl bussing the tables approached with a tray and cloth. She picked up his plate, and wiped down the table in front of him. He'd been looking at Sam's face, when the dark mark snagged his peripheral vision and as she lifted the cloth and turned her hand, he saw it again, the thick lines, the delicate pattern, the three pointed knot tattooed on her wrist.

His head snapped up and he looked at her as she collected Sam's empty plate. She was very thin, so thin he could see the individual bones that made up her wrist, forearm and elbow. Long dark hair fell like a curtain over her face, hiding it. He couldn't remember the name on the driver's licence, and he straightened up as she turned away, bearing the large tray with the plates back to the kitchen.

"Dean, you even listening, man?" Sam stared at him.

He shook his head, his attention remaining on the girl. The swinging doors to the kitchen, at the rear of the restaurant, swung open just as she reached them and he saw her flinch back as a large man came out through them. The man's hand flashed out, gripping her wrist. He jerked his head to the hallway next to them and she set down the tray, half-walking, half-dragged along behind him.

"Back in a minute," he said to Sam, rising fast, his gaze fixed on the hall where they'd gone.

"What?" He heard Sam's astonished squawk behind him, but he didn't have time to explain, lengthening his stride as he crossed the room and veered down the narrow hall.

It was empty, but the far exit door was just closing on slow hinges and he moved down quickly, catching the edge of it and pushing it open. Three steps led from the building down to the alley, filled with noisome dumpsters and loose trash. He went down them and looked down the alley then spun around and looked back up again. He saw her walking away fast, hunched over, long hair tangling behind her.

"Hey!"

She stopped, turned. For a moment he could see the outline of her face, too distantly to make out any features.

"Wait a –"

He started toward her, and she swung around, walking fast to the corner and disappearing around it.

Dean slowed. He could come back later, or tomorrow, if she worked here, he thought. He turned back to the rear door. He'd meant to check on her, a bit later, after the hoo-ha had died down about the murders in the bar. Meant to go to the hospital, see that she was alright … but they'd picked up another couple of cases in quick succession, and by the time they were done with them, they'd been several states away and too much time had passed. He thought of the skeletally thin arm and sighed.

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><p>"What the hell, man?" Sam stood next to the counter and looked at him as he walked back up the hall and into the restaurant.<p>

"Sorry, thought I saw someone." He gestured to the door.

"Really?" The sarcasm almost dripped from his brother.

"Outside." Dean walked past him and pushed through the front doors, half-turning as Sam came out behind him. "That girl. From New Mexico. The one we dumped in the hospital."

Sam's expression shifted and his brow wrinkled. "That was the waitress?"

His brother shrugged. "Not sure. She was most of the way out of the alley when I caught up."

Sam walked beside him, hunched over with his hands in his pockets. "I didn't get much of a look at her in there."

"No, neither did I." Dean lifted his hand and turned it over, pointing to the inside of his wrist. "She had a tattoo, here. A triangle, but like a stylised one, like a knot."

"A triquetra?" Sam looked at him.

"A what?"

"Celtic. Three pointed knot, with a circle in the centre. It represents three equal powers, like in pagan magic, the three stages of womanhood; or the mind, soul and body or in Christianity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

"Huh. She had it before. I saw it … in the bar."

"Might not mean anything. Maybe someone else who just liked the design." Sam flicked at a glance at him. "You know this was two years ago."

Dean shook his head. "I meant to go back and make sure she was okay. I didn't. I feel responsible."

"Only for getting her out of there, Dean. Not for after." Sam stopped at the car.

"Mmm." Dean unlocked the door and walked around to the driver's side, looking up the street. He could see the entrance to the alley from here. He got in, and started the engine.

"We have other business, man. More important business," Sam pressed as they pulled out. Dean check his mirrors and turned into the alley, ignoring his brother's deep exhale.

The car moved slowly up the alley, the engine noise reflected and echoing slightly from the brick buildings to either side. They both the saw the pair of legs at the same time and Dean braked, then killed the engine.

The man lay between two of the dumpsters, his pants unzipped and pushed down slightly, his eyes staring sightlessly into the sky. Sam crouched beside him, two fingers on the carotid artery of his neck, feeling for a pulse. After a minute he looked up at this brother and shook his head.

He looked down at the man, lifting a name tag that was pinned to the sweater he wore. Archie Stringhold. Manager. He looked back at Dean, one brow lifted.

"Heart attack."

Dean's gaze travelled slowly down the body, and scanned around it. "He had the girl by the wrist when they came out here." He looked at the man's pants. "Might have been trying to force her into …"

Sam looked down at the open zipper. "Extra curricular activities?"

"Yeah." He turned and looked up the alley, at the corner around which she'd disappeared. "Maybe he got overexcited and popped a valve?"

Sam stood up and pulled out his phone, punching in 911. Dean looked down at the manager. He saw in his mind's eye the way the man had held her wrist, pulling her after him. He might have gotten overexcited but it hadn't been because he had a willing partner, he thought sourly. Good riddance.

He turned and went back in the exit door at the rear of the restaurant, catching the eye of one of the waitresses as he came out of the hallway. She looked at him suspiciously, and he pulled the federal badge from his jacket pocket.

"Your manager is lying in the back alley, looks like heart attack."

Her eyes widened at him, mouth dropping open. "What?"

"The girl who was bussing tables earlier, have you got her employment records?"

She nodded, gesturing to a door just inside the hall he'd come through. "In the office. Ah, Adrianna."

"I'll need to take them." He walked with her to the door and waited as she unlocked it. There were only three filing cabinets and she went straight to the middle one, marked Employees, opening the centre drawer and pulling out a file. He took it, flipping it open. Adrianna Landry.

Nodding, he turned around and walked back out, and down the hall, the file tucked against his side.

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><p>"You heard what the coroner said. Third heart attack victim in three months. All of them without a mark on them, artery wall failing."<p>

"Get to the point, Sam." Dean leaned back in the chair, Adrianna's file open in front of him.

"The point is that she came into town three months ago. Got a job at the bar where the first vic died. Then got a job at the restaurant where Archie whats-his-name died."

"So you're saying that this girl, who weighs all of eighty pounds soaking wet, somehow killed these guys, without leaving a mark, by giving them heart attacks?" He let the scepticism roll out heavily.

"I don't say I know how she's doing it, I'm just saying, look at the facts." Sam ran a hand abruptly through his hair. "Dean, I know you don't want hear anything bad about this girl. I know you feel like you owe her, or something. But these guys … there's a pattern here."

His brother raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"The guy at the bar. I talked to the bartender there and the girls who work the weekend shifts. He was a groper. Sometimes pushed it a lot further." Sam looked up at Dean. "The guy who died on the street, the second one, had a mile-long record for flashing, indecent exposure, trying to get young girls into secluded areas."

"So far, the only thing you're convincing me of is that it's a good thing these guys are dead." Dean leaned forward across the table. "Manager of the restaurant have a record for anything?"

Sam shook his head. "No. But two of the waitresses said he'd try force or extort sex from any new staff – girls or guys – unless they looked bigger or stronger than him."

"Another solid loser gone downstairs." He looked into Sam's eyes. "I can see you got a theory, Sam. Spit it out."

"After what happened to Adrianna, there's a possibility that maybe she developed some power of her own." Sam gestured to the notes in front of him. "All these guys were in her vicinity, they probably all tried to force her to do something – and they're all dead of heart attacks. Sometimes, trauma can trigger psychic abilities."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "You talking about something like … Carrie?"

"Yeah, well kind of." Sam looked uncomfortable. "What if she found that she did have some sort of psychokinesis? Some way to fight back?"

"Shouldn't their heads have exploded?"

Sam gave him a sour look. "The amount of effort it takes to close a vein or an artery would be less than it would take to pick up a pencil. She doesn't have to be very strong, just accurate."

Dean's smiled faded. "When we took her to the hospital, she was terrified, Sam. If she'd been able to pull that kind of power, don't you think it would have happened while those bastards were raping her?"

"Maybe not." Sam turned away and dug in his bag. "I rang the hospital this afternoon, talked to the doctor, to find out what happened to her."

He pulled out a second notebook and flipped through the pages. "She healed up okay from the physical injuries okay, pretty fast actually. But she had a psychotic breakdown."

"What a fucking surprise."

Sam glanced at him and ignored that, reading. "They put her into a psych ward, tried to give her counselling, drugs –"

"Crap. Really?" Dean felt his heart sink. After everything she'd already been through. He should have stayed, he shouldn't have left her alone there.

"Yeah. Well, they didn't know what else to do with her, she was having nightmares constantly, unable to sleep, not eating, terrified of anyone coming within five feet of her."

Dean closed his eyes. He should have stayed, goddammit. She might have actually stayed attached to reality if he'd been there. She'd pleaded for him to stay.

"She escaped four weeks after being admitted." He looked up at his brother. "The orderly on duty that night was found at the foot of her bed, dead. Heart attack. Not a mark on him."

"Guess we know what he tried."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. That might have been what tipped it over. Thinking that she was safe, or relatively safe, and having it happen again or threaten to happen again."

He watched his brother lean on the table, head resting on his crossed arms.

"You can't go and see her alone, Dean. She could kill you with a thought."

"You can't come with me, Sam. She might remember you, she might not. But two on one is not reassuring. It looks threatening." Dean raised his head, looking up at Sam. "In the hospital, she asked me to stay with her." Begged, actually, he thought tiredly.

"You can't count on her remembering that, Dean. Or remembering you. Or caring."

"No. But it's the only place I have to start." He got up and checked his pockets for keys, wallet, phone, gun.

"All right. But I gotta be close by." Sam got up as well.

Dean smiled at him, a crooked smile, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Waste of time, Sam. Unless you're in the room, you won't know what's going on. And if she can stop a heart from across a room, then there's no way you'll get the drop on her."

"There's a hotel across the street from her apartment, Dean. I checked. I'll take the long range rifle. Just make sure the curtains are open and I'll be able to see you, without freaking her out." Sam folded his arms across his chest, waiting.

His brother shook his head admiringly. "You really worked this out. I'm impressed."

He shrugged. "Yeah, okay, you can sit and watch."

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><p>He stood in front of the door, his hand raised to knock, hesitating as he wondered if Sam was right. Would she remember him? Her life didn't look like it had been all that good since that night. Would the ongoing traumas and scars have wiped that memory? Did it matter? He had to try, he'd know soon enough if she didn't.<p>

He knocked on the door and waited. After several minutes, he tried again. There was a small click from inside the door, then another. It opened a crack and he saw her face, shadowed and curtained by her hair, staring out at him.

"Adrianna?" He wet his lips. "I, uh … do you remember me?"

She nodded once. He couldn't see if she was looking at him, or at the floor or at the wall behind him.

"I just wanted to … see you. See if you were okay." He winced inwardly at the inadequacy of the words.

The door inched closed and he heard the chain rattle off. When it opened again, she was standing behind it, holding it wide.

The room was small and cramped, a sofa bed stood under the windows, opened up and the bedding in a tangle at the foot. To the left a door opened into a tiny bathroom. To the right, a kitchen counter ran along half the wall, with a small fridge and stove at one end, a sink at the other. The walls were stained and the wallpaper peeling off. The carpet under his feet was threadbare and dirty. He walked in, past her, and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room as she closed the door behind him.

Under the too-bright bare bulb, he could see her clearly for the first time when she turned back to him. She was too thin, the bones of her face standing out, her mouth and eyes too big. In the cheap cotton tee shirt and jeans she looked like a poster from any third world country where starvation was an ongoing problem, every visible bone was pressed against the skin, looking like it might push through at any moment.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

She shrugged and shook her head, moving slowly past him to sit down at the small card table near the fridge. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her shirt, hands shaking slightly as she lit one. He walked to the other chair, sitting down and looking at her.

"I couldn't get it out of my head." She looked at the table top. "After you left. It kept playing over and over again. It stopped when they gave me the drugs, uh, Thorazine I think but I can't remember. Then I couldn't sleep and I felt too sick to eat. And they stopped the drugs and it came back."

"Did you have anyone to talk to?" He knew about nightmares. Both he and Sam did. But he had the feeling theirs weren't quite like this.

She grimaced. "I couldn't tell anyone. It was bad enough I had to watch it, feel it. Telling someone else? No." Her mouth twisted suddenly.

"I'm sorry." He watched the spasms cross her face.

"Why did you leave?" She was looking at the floor, her hair falling in front of her face again, hiding it, her voice barely a whisper.

"We killed thirteen people that night," he said simply. "Didn't want to get strung up for murder."

"It wasn't murder."

"Yeah. It was. They were … monsters. But it was cold-blooded murder," he said firmly. And if he hadn't already been going to Hell, that act would have put him there, he thought bleakly. He'd do it again without a qualm, he knew.

"You saved me." She bit her lip. "They would have kept going until I was dead. That … woman … told me that."

"Yeah, that's what I thought too." He looked at her. "You didn't do anything wrong, you know. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She looked up at that. "That's all it takes, though, isn't it?"

"Sometimes." He thought about Sam and his father and his mother, then pushed the thoughts away. "You killed those men? The orderly, the guy at the bar, the others?"

She looked away from him. "I don't know."

He waited, sensing she hadn't finished.

"The orderly … when I saw him the first night … he had a darkness in him."

Dean straightened slightly, wondering at the words, wondering if they meant what he thought they meant.

"He watched me for a week before he …" she stopped, swallowing and Dean saw her gaze turn inwards to her memories. The cigarette had burned almost down to her fingers and she dropped it suddenly into the ashtray, looking back at him.

"I was restrained, at night." She shuddered, her gaze cutting away and dropping. "Because of the dreams, sometimes I had convulsions, so they had these straps … he watched me at night. I saw him. I could feel him. Feel his eyes in the dark. I couldn't sleep, not for long, and then he came right up to the bed."

Dean watched her hand close up tightly, a trickle of blood appearing after a moment from the outside creases as she drove her nails into her palm. He stared at it, wanting to move, to clean it, to hold it, but afraid to.

"It was like the other … I was trapped. And he was smiling, as if it were a game, as if it were fun." Her head snapped around to look at him, her eyes glittering. "He knew what had happened to me, everyone did. He put his hands under the hospital gown, and touched me, pushed them into me … and I felt something in my head. Like a wave. Or an explosion." She shook her head, unable to describe that feeling, that monstrously powerful feeling that had filled her mind, then her body with heat and then cold. "My eyes were closed. When I opened them, he was lying on the floor. The restraints were gone. Not just open or off, but actually gone. I don't know what happened to them."

She stood up nervously, trying to shake off the feelings, the memories, and walked to the kitchen, picking up the kettle and filling it, setting it onto the stove and lighting the burner.

"Why didn't you go home?" He watched her moving, seeing the jitter in her body.

"I didn't have a home." She turned to him in surprise. "My folks died the year before, a car crash. That's why I was in New Mexico, I'd been travelling around, just having a couple of years off before I decided what I wanted to do."

"Oh, I'm sorry." He looked down at the table. He'd imagined that she would heal up and go back to Dallas, back to her family. Why hadn't he realised that things were never that simple, for anyone, really?

"I started heading east and north. Just trying to figure out how to keep going mostly." She stood by the stove, hunching up, her arms wrapped around her chest. "I stopped here because it looked like a nice town." She shook her head, then looked up at him. "I knew. I knew that I'd done it. To that orderly. Knew that I'd killed him. I tried to practise, to get better, but I couldn't do it unless someone was … you know."

He nodded. "We talked to the people at the bar. And the restaurant."

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "World we live in, huh?"

The kettle began to whistle and she lifted it from the stove, pulling down a mug, then looking over her shoulder at him. "Do you want a coffee?"

"Sure."

She pulled another down and spooned instant into them, filling them with water.

"No cream or sugar. Sorry."

He took the mug and smiled. "Don't be sorry, this is the way I like it."

"I can't sleep. I can't really eat much. It hasn't gone away, even though I know it won't happen again, can never happen again now." She blew on the hot drink, her hands wrapped around the mug.

"You need to see someone, talk to someone. Get it out of your head." He looked at her, setting the mug on the table in front of him. He could hardly believe the words were coming out of his mouth, Sam's words, his brother's cure-all for the things that went wrong.

"I can't. I've tried. I can't get the words out." She closed her eyes briefly. "I don't know if it's shame, or guilt or just terror, but I can't trust anyone enough to do it."

He frowned. "You don't sound traumatised anymore."

"No. It's not that. I mean, I guess it is at some level. But I've thought about this for two years, tried to figure out a way to make it stop, to get rid of it." She looked up at him, and he saw the deep weariness in her eyes, the exhaustion that was grinding her down from her pain. "It's almost as if it's a separate thing now. I don't know how to explain it. When something happens, like today, earlier … then I'm not in control, just shaking and crying and acting on instincts. But usually, it's not like that … I can't shut it out, and I can't deal with it, but I can still get on with things, you know?"

He shook his head slightly. "Not really, no." Another thought occurred to him. "Just now, you could talk to me about what happened in the hospital."

She looked at him steadily. "Yeah."

It took him a few moments to realise what she was saying. "Why me?"

"I don't know." She drank some of her coffee. "When the door burst in, I looked over and you were there, and you just started firing, just killed them one by one. You cut me free, and held me when I didn't think I could stand to have another person ever touch me again." She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know why you … because you didn't make a face when you saw me? Because you just did what you did? Because you are who you are? I don't know."

"I did what anyone would do, there's nothing special about me."

She laughed, a short, harsh bark. "No one else would have done what you did. No one."

He was silent. She might have been right about that. Sam had been shocked.

"You ever read a book called The Right Stuff? By Tom Wolfe?"

He shook his head, confused at the sudden change of topic. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly.

"It's about the test pilots in the fifties. Chuck Yeager mainly, and the men who went up into space in the Mercury space program. These pilots, they did the flights that broke the sound barrier, in experimental planes." She sipped her coffee. "There's a phrase they used … when they reached the absolute outside of the envelope … as far as they could push the planes … _out of the blue, into the black_." She looked up at him, looking into his eyes. "It means that you're out of the safety zone, and into the unknown, into the place where anything can happen, where you can die."

He waited, not understanding what she meant, where she was going with it.

"That's where I went. Where I am. In the black." She put down her cup and sighed softly. "I don't know that I can come back. Not without someone's help. Not without your help."

He felt his fingers tighten around the cup. Somewhere, inside of him, he'd known this was coming, this was what his feelings of responsibility were about … if he'd stayed, if they'd taken her further away, to another hospital in another state and he'd been able to stay, this might have gotten sorted out then, straight away and nothing that had happened to her in the last two years would have happened at all. But he was afraid. Not of dying, although he admitted to himself that it was a possibility, if he said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing at the wrong time; but of sharing. Of hearing about it.

He nodded abruptly, not giving himself time to think about it any further. He was on a one-way ticket already. What difference would it make if he went sooner rather than later? And she needed him. No one else. Just him. He couldn't think of a time when that had been true in his life.

* * *

><p>"How do you want to do this?"<p>

The room was dark, the curtains drawn, the light off. He'd given Sam a discreet thumbs up as he'd drawn the curtains, hoping he'd see it, and not freak out completely when he realised he couldn't see in at all.

They lay together on the sofa bed, a little apart, side by side. He listened to her breathing, rapid, shallow, ragged around the edges. She was afraid. He was too.

"I wasn't drunk." He heard the rustle as she turned her head to him on the pillow. "But I wasn't careful. Not as careful as I usually am."

Her voice became a little higher. "There were a lot of people there, and it was okay. I thought I'd have something to eat, just relax for a bit because I'd done about eight hours driving that day. Around ten, I went to the restroom. When I came out, the woman was there, in the hall. She hit me in the face, and pushed me back into the restroom, told me to keep quiet or she was going to cut me open."

He lay quietly beside her, his imagination furnishing the images as she spoke, his hands curling into fists. He could feel the lightweight bedframe shaking slightly as the shuddering of her body transferred to it.

"I tried to fight back, when I really realised what they were going to do. I wasn't thinking, actually, but it seemed better to die fighting than to just give up." Her voice hitched again. "But that wasn't the choice. Two of them held me, the leader or whatever he was, starting hitting me, and after a while I couldn't see properly, couldn't breathe, I kept tasting blood, in my mouth, in my nose, down my throat. Then they tied me to the table."

For a long moment, all he could hear was her breath, rasping in and out of her throat. He turned his head, seeing her indistinctly in the near-blackness, a sense that she was hunched up, curled tightly on her side.

He didn't know what to say. Talking about pain wasn't among his strengths. He reached out very slowly, his fingers finding the fall of hair over her face, stroking it back. He heard her breath stop and felt his own catch in his throat. Then she let out the breath, hard enough that he could feel the exhale on his arm. She had moved closer to him, and he wasn't sure what to make of that either.

"Uh … they … uh …" she struggled with the words, rocking slightly as she tried to force them out. Dean felt his heart pounding in the hollow of his throat, and he reached out, not caring now if it meant that he died, unable to say what he wanted to say, but knowing that she needed something to help her get past this part, to get it out, out of her head where it was poisoning her. She stiffened as she felt his arm slide under her, then relaxed suddenly, her arms still curled against her chest, but her cheek resting against him, as his arm curved around her, pulling her closer.

"One of them had his …" she froze on the word, but he knew what she meant. "He pushed it into my mouth, down my throat, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't get air … past … it … the other …" She dragged in a deep breath, feeling her stomach starting to roll and lurch. "He … he was … I was dry … fucking … it hurt … was just ramming it into me …"

He heard the noise from her stomach and reached over her for the bucket she'd put beside the bed, getting it under her mouth as she retched, the thin stream of bile and coffee splashing on the bottom. He reached around until he found the tissues, wiping her mouth as she tried to pull in air. He felt a pressure in his chest, and his eyes widened as he realised what was happening.

"Adrianna, it's okay. It's not happening." Pain shot down his side and he dragged a breath, trying to keep his voice even. "It's not happening, you're safe, no one can hurt you."

She looked at him, her eyes refocussing slowly as his words registered, as she came back to now.

He felt the pain disappear, the pressure ease away. "It's okay."

"Did I …?"

"Yeah, a bit." He shook his head at the stricken expression on her face. "It's alright."

He'd known what they'd done, as soon as he'd walked in the room. Why was it worse when she was saying it? Why wasn't it enough that they were dead? Why did he wish he could go back and kill them again?

He felt wetness soaking through his shirt and onto his skin first. Then the shaking of her shoulders, and the long, drawn out inhales and fast, hard exhales, her chest rising and falling as the mix of emotions she'd been fighting to hold down, hold back for years now, came out, at first a trickle, then growing until it became a flood.

"They kept going, and I could feel myself starting to blank out, and then someone would hit me, or cut me, or bite me and I'd come back for a while longer because the fresh pain was like a leash, I couldn't get away."

He saw again the wounds that had covered her. The deep indentations over her breasts and the insides of her thighs, filled with blood and surrounded by bruising. The slashes and cuts.

"Why? I couldn't understand why … why hurt me so much? Why try to kill me? What did I do? What did I do to deserve it?"

He closed his eyes tightly, his lips on her hair. "Nothing. You didn't do anything. There are just monsters out there. It didn't have anything to do with you, with who you are or what you were doing. You understand that?"

She was silent. He felt her breathing ease, her heartbeat, under his hand on her back slowing and steadying. None of it had been about sex, he thought. Just torture. He'd never regretted what he'd done, but now he found himself regretting a little that he'd let them off so easily. He shifted slightly, so that her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder, his arms close around her. He felt her ribs rise, with an extra deep breath, and fall softly. Was she letting it go? Would it be over for her finally?

Maybe Sam had been right about this talking and sharing stuff, he thought tiredly. Maybe it was like cleaning an infection, you let out the poison and things could get better on their own. He sighed. It was too late now for him. Time was ticking by and there was no way he was getting out of his deal.

He heard it when her breathing shifted from just relaxed to sleep, and let his own eyes drift shut, thought dissolving as sleep came for him too.

* * *

><p>He woke suddenly, rising onto his elbow, as he stared around the still-dark room, a strong sense of something being very wrong pounding at the back of his head. He was alone in the bed, the sheets cool where Adrianna had been lying and he swung his legs off and stood up fast.<p>

The apartment was silent, except for one noise. He could hear a drip somewhere, large fat drops hitting water. The image was very clear in his mind as he listened. He turned to the bathroom, walking slowly, his heart accelerating as he came to the door. His hand felt for the light switch and he flipped it up, and stared down at the tub. From the tap, another drop formed and fell, hitting the surface of the water and echoing faintly from the tiled walls.

The water was red.

Adrianna was half-submerged, her eyes closed, head rolled back over the edge of the tub, her skin almost translucent over her bones, without any colour at all. Dean walked to the edge and crouched beside her, lifting her arm from the bloody water. Six deep cuts traversed the length of her forearm, intersected by a long downward slash from the elbow to the wrist. She'd hit the arteries. It would have been fast. He stood up and turned away, his throat and chest tight.

On the table, a handwritten note was addressed to him. He looked at it and walked to the door, flicking the light switch next to it on. Then he picked up the letter.

_When I fell asleep I felt peace as I haven't for a long time. I thought it was over. I thought that whatever magic it had taken to get you here, it had worked._

_It hasn't._

_Lying next to you, I thought I could heal enough. But that won't happen. I woke afraid. I woke with my flesh crawling and my mind broken just as I have all the other mornings and nights and days._

_It might be life, but it's not the life I wanted or want. I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for doing what you did, when you didn't have to. For staying last night and giving me the strength to at least try to break free._

_I went into the black and I can't come home now. So I'll keep on going. Maybe I'll see you on the other side._

_Adrianna Landry._

* * *

><p>Sam looked at Dean's face and looked away. His brother's jaw was set, his face expressionless as he focussed on the road. The car's shadow was long in front of them, the rear window filled with the pale dawn light, and the stereo was silent for a change.<p>

Dean reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the letter, holding it out to his little brother without taking his eyes from the road. Sam blinked and took it, smoothing out the paper and reading it.

"Still want to tell me how much good it does to talk things out, Sam?"

Sam looked over at him. "Most of the time it works, Dean."

"Not all of the time."

"No." He looked down at the letter again. "What did she mean by going into the black?"

Dean shook his head. "Beyond the safety zone. She was where we are all the time. Where the monsters are."

Sam's eyes narrowed. Dean's view of things was usually much more prosaic.

"Are you alright?"

"No." His brother stared ahead. "No, I'm not alright. This is fucked up. What we do is fucked up, Sam. She was fucked up because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were just people. How are we supposed to save people from other people?"

"Maybe we're not."

"Yeah." He didn't want to think about it anymore. Thinking about it just made it worse, the more he realised, the worse the whole situation looked. He pushed the tape in and the sound filled the car, blocking out his thoughts, redirecting his feelings.

Sam sighed and looked out the window.

* * *

><p>"<em>Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength."<em>

_~ Anon_


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